Last Light

9 Where, Oh, Where Has My Little Dog Gone?

Rainer considered setting Makani’s house on fire.

She wouldn’t need a home anymore. She’d be dead soon.

She was fond of the bungalow.

He would enjoy telling her that he had burned it down.

Or save himself the trouble. Just claim to have torched it.

For sure, he would kill the dog in front of her.

She had thrown beer in his face. Defied him.

Her death would not be easy.

After she drove away, he went into the house. Looked in the refrigerator. Made a ham-and-cheese sandwich.

Eating at her kitchen table, watching the GPS map displayed on his smartphone, he followed the blinking dot that was her ’54 Chevy as she drove south on Coast Highway.

These days, you could buy a dog collar with a microminiature transponder in it, so your pooch could never be lost. Rainer had put one in her car.

She was his dog, after all. His little bitch.

She had been his since he first saw her ten years earlier. She just hadn’t known it.

He always got what he wanted. Sometimes it took a while.

The blinking dot stopped in Laguna Beach.

The GPS system provided an address.

He finished his dinner.

He gathered up the clothes that she had stripped off as she had gone from front door to bedroom, when she’d first come home.

The garments smelled of her. He liked the feel of them.

He put them under the pillow on her bed.

To refresh himself for what lay ahead, he needed some sleep.

After undressing, he slipped naked into her bed.

He never had trouble falling asleep. Insomnia was caused by anxiety. He had no anxiety. Nothing worried him. He led a perfect, beautiful life.

He slept between Makani’s sheets. With the intoxicating smell of her.

He dreamed that she was under him. He saw her in ecstasy. And then he saw her torn and broken, which was his ecstasy.